Virginia’s Gubernatorial Race: Where Things Stand With Less Than a Month to Go By Geoffrey Skelley

The November of the year following a presidential election is always relatively quiet on the electoral front, with only regularly-scheduled statewide races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. With the Garden State’s contest looking like a safe Democratic pickup and Alabama’s special election for the U.S. Senate not happening until December, coverage of the competitive Virginia race seems to be accelerating as it enters the final month before Election Day. This is only natural: gubernatorial elections in the Old Dominion traditionally ramp up around Labor Day, and now that the election is less than four weeks away, the candidates are beginning to go all-in on television ads, which attracts more notice inside and outside of the commonwealth.